Entries by Joe Cottrell-Boyce

For the past month, The Evening Standard has been running a sobering series of articles on gangs in London, under the headline 'Frontline London'. Youth gangs, the paper reports, are now responsible for half of all shootings and a fifth of all stabbings in capital. 'What we are...

Last month, Inside Housing reported that only 101 of the 597 Traveller pitches allocated government funding in England since 2012 have managed to secure planning permission. Without permission, it is unlikely any of the remainder will go ahead; another broken promise in the ongoing struggle for adequate Traveller accommodation in...

Last Thursday the BBC released a video of 83-year-old Muriel Price, sobbing pitiful protests to an empty house as she lay stranded in her bed, her agency carer having failed to turn up to work. Her quiet desperation painted a shameful picture of how little our society values...

The right-wing think tank Reform has published a report claiming that private firms are better at running prisons. 'The case for private prisons' criticises the government for moving away from the wholesale privatisation of the prison estate, claiming that private prisons, introduced in England and Wales in the 1990's, are...

In a couplet of speeches in November, Shadow Education-Secretary Stephen Twigg outlined his share of the "radical and progressive vision for Britain" that is 'One Nation Labour'. One Nation Education will be "fundamental to addressing the divided country we face today"; a school system which gets back to...

Boris Johnson's claim that he has delivered 50,000 affordable homes over the course of his Mayoralty has raised many an eyebrow over the course of his campaign. Critics insist that he has inflated the figures and that, at any rate, he is taking credit for a legacy of Labour funding...